Truth be told – Part 2

I ended my last article (https://oliviamontessori.com/truth-be-told/) with the intention of expanding on the 2 threads in subsequent writing –

1. The transformation from my earlier self to a different person
2. The journey to understanding what I wanted to achieve in the remaining part of my life

In this second part I’m going to expand on the second point and the author Po Bronson has a major role in this episode. You may well ask if I’m trying to tiptoe away from the first point. To be honest, the tiptoeing is a temporary strategic move – I now believe this topic requires a dedicated article (or maybe articles) and would be underserved if combined with any other topic/s.

In my earlier avatar I was employed in the corporate sector, hated every moment of it, and lived only for salary day. Why do I use the word hate? This has nothing to do with the corporates I worked in, though I must insert here that many colleagues had a knack for complicating the simple things, for making bureaucratic procedures, and generally pushing their titles ahead of their achievements.

So if it had nothing to do with the corporate or my colleagues, it obviously pointed to something in me and this is what I was unable to understand and thus unable to explain to those who faced the brunt of the lackadaisical me.

During these years, a dear friend, younger to me by decades and not years, gave me a book he had just finished reading – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/163365.What_Should_I_Do_with_My_Life_

I read it at high speed, re-read it, and understood I was holding the answer to my internal snafu. Right Rakesh, so that would have you sorted, is what you may think. Actually, I tried to return the book to my friend who was going through some turmoil in his own life telling him that within the stories of the people Po Bronson had interviewed, he would find the answers to his questions!

Very kindly and with a very straight face, he insisted I keep the book.

Hope you are beginning to understand the special kind of nitwit I was back then?

A couple of years after I was given the book, my life (as I knew it till then) came to a standstill due to serious medical setbacks both my wife & I went through. Post these setbacks, as we were both trying to return to some kind of normalcy, I decided I was never going back to a corporate job. The time gap between this decision and deciding on the future course of action was close to 3 years. Why so long?

Po Bronson again – “Never underestimate our ability to ignore the obvious. So often, that’s what keeps us from clarity – not a lack of desire.”

There were multiple obvious signs/signals/validations/hints which could have got me to the next stage much faster than the 3 years it actually took and running a close second to the loss of time (in what is in any case a short stint in this world), is the money I burnt doing sweet %$#@ all during the said 3 years.

1. Grandfather an educationalist (apparently it is a word) who rose to be the headmaster of a government school in Malleswaram. A sidenote here please – said grandfather borrowed heavily to educate his 9 children – girls and boys. When the 3 oldest sons started earning, they were the ones who paid back the Pathan moneylenders. This caused some friction with their wives no doubt but they were a close and loyal lot, the sons. Other anecdotes about this grandfather will be the subject matter of other articles, hmmm?
2. My sister (and only sibling) is an AMI certified Montessori teacher with a few years of working with children before she had her own child.
3. My mum’s only sibling – her elder sister – trained and certified by the 2nd generation of AMI trainers (the ones immediately after Madam Montessori & her son Mario) way back in the 1970s. She had over 4 decades of experience working with children in Montessori schools across the world before she took samadhi in 2025.
4. Cousins who are into education at college level working in prestigious universities in the USA
5. Another cousin who after a PhD and college level tenure decided he wanted to teach in school

I can add a few more family members to the list including one with a Bharat Ratna. Not to leave out my father who cracked a full scholarship to Rochester for his MTech in Chemical Engineering way back in the early 1960s.

What it points to are the genes of education in my family, specifically education at preschool and grade school level (and the extremely high IQ levels of these relatives when compared to myself, the duffer and black sheep of the family?).

While I’m at this rant about my family, there are multiple IIT/IIM/IISc grads and PhDs too and the point I would like to make here (in addition to my lack of such major credentials) is this recent preschool I saw not far from Olivia Montessori whose board boldly states it is a preschool and day care by IIT – IIM alumni. Hot diggity dawg! I mean, holy moly! Should I quickly add a few of my more esteemed relatives to the board of Trustees of Olivia Montessori and change our school board to

MONTESSORI PRESCHOOL & DAY CARE BY IIT/IIM/IISc/CORNELL/HARVARD ALUMNI

I mean Gee whiz, maybe more parents will fall for this gimmick, hmmm?

I think after 900 plus words, I will end this part 2 with these parting words of advise to anyone who reads this article – wake up and smell the coffee.

I will return to point 2 of this article in the next episode – Truth be told – Part 3. Thanks and love you all.